I know so far the posts on my blog have made it seem like Nicole and I are just partyin' it up here in Chile. That is true- but the REAL reason I came to Chile was to collect data for two species of Aegla crabs. One species is only found in rivers and the other species is only found in lakes. In the Patagonia region (where I am right now), there have been several series of glacier melts and freezes. This caused the crabs to have to move back and forth in refuge areas; because of these moves it is speculated that these crabs come from the same origin but have specialized for the niche they eventually stayed in. What I plan on doing is collecting 60 or so crabs (30-males, 30-females) from a river and a lake location. From there I will take pictures of them and use systematics to determine the degree of physical changes!
Yay!
OKay so now that all the biology stuff is explained....
Here's my first collecting trip!
We went the river named Quepe (38 degrees south, 72 degrees west) to collect my river crabs!
In this particular river two species of Aegla can be found, A. pewenchae (smooth carpace) and A. chol-chol (spiny carpace). My research only involves the A. chol-chol with another lake crab, so we threw all the A. pewenchae back.
To catch the crabs we used a fine net with two sticks. The sticks are used so you can keep the net open and let the current pass through. Then with your feet you just move the rocks around in front of the net's opening. This dislodges the crabs from under the rocks and they current takes them into the net. Then you just open the net and take them out!
Aegla are pretty small and even thought they try and pinch you when you take them out, it doesn't really hurt.
We got all the crabs we needed and for the rest of the afternoon we visited Temuco since it was close by. Yet another great day in Chile!
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I like the videos. Man, those crabs are feisty!
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